My mom passed away five years ago. I was sixteen years old, in grade 11, and walking home from school on a Friday listening to a leaked version of Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky, which would come out the following week. For anyone that knows that record, or the song On and On and On, you can understand how hearing my favourite songwriter in the world sing about the exact same thing I was going through at that moment made me feel. It seemed serendipitous. It heightened every emotion I had, all the while comforting me to know I wasn’t alone in this. That record still means a lot to me now.

Grieving is not something that is programmed into anyone at that age, especially grieving for the loss of one of your parents. People usually build up to losing the person who is closest to them throughout their life. I didn’t. In the weeks that followed all I really wanted was someone to relate to, to tell me it would be alright, to know what I was going through. Tweedy (zanger van Wilco, red.) knew. But, I still put off fully dealing with extent of my feelings and grieving for years because I wasn’t ready, I was too young, it was too new and I didn’t know how. Until roughly a year ago.

Looking back on it now, I grieved through this record and came out the other side. I really feel like I’m ready for people to hear it, for it to hopefully reach people, and if not it doesn’t matter to me. I escaped into these songs, and in a lot of ways they seem like all I have left, but at least I have them.